Hasta morir

First of all the production values on the DVD are not very good; the sound quality is especially horrible. The plot is basically the same old "tough lives of the youth" story which has been done a thousand times over the past few years in Latin American cinema over the past few years. The one bright spot in the film is Dolores Beristain's performance as the alcoholic and mentally ill aunt Chenta. Her performance is very realistic, but too brief. Also, her story is not supported very well by the plot and stops making sense towards the end of the movie, along with several other aspects of the plot. Overall, this movie has been done before and been done far better.

The main point of this movie is honor; Those who set the rules of it and those who truly take the principles to the facts. They may have made a better Character out of Mauricio (I would have named him, to begin, "El rulis" or any common nickname from the slang of this fashion), but Demián Bichir was, anyway, the best actor they could have found for this role. Conventionally, we can talk about El Boy (Bernal, excellent in his role by the way, too) as the good guy, and Demián Bichir as the bad, but each turn their their ways and, at the end of the movie we ask ourselves how worth could revenge be in this case. What did anybody would win from from that? Concerning this, this movie is somehow thought provoking. There are some phrases we hear very often throughout the movie : "Life is not the same for everybody", " A tattoo is not simple fashion, but pain that comes from deep inside and you cannot forget", etc...What I understood from all those vague hints, is that we see two characters from very different backgrounds merge in a single one, and that intention is not the only thing that we need to change our lives and rescue something that's lost...

Those who have seen "bound by honor" or "Boulevard Nights" or "la banda de los panchitos" and liked them, may like this one, even though the cholo characters are not as well portrayed as in these, maybe because they didn't have the first hand resource....but they tried, and found that in the end, the banda and cholo fashions are not as dissimilar as they look. Both are mexican after all.